He was ashamed of her for the same reason her affluent family was ashamed of her half black son

 

He recognized the thin man from high school. Jimmy remembered he was visually impaired but not quite legally blind. He was never in a wheel chair and Jimmy felt bad seeing him in one now.
 
As the two passed in front of Jimmie’s favorite tree he noticed the two of them wore matching outlandish outfits. Jimmie would be distracted from the two of them as he retreated to thoughts of his childhood. 
 
The sights of the neighborhood had begun to conjure old feelings of childhood shame. Jimmie remembered sitting in the same spot the day his father dropped him off with his real mother still in the car. All the kids on the block were outside playing and saw him with the white woman.
 
Being raised in a black home and neighborhood; rarely seeing his real mother and never once seeing her family he never considered he looked white and didn’t even notice when he was mistaken for white.
 
Jimmie never saw himself as different from his peers until being seen with her.
 
He was ashamed of her for the same reason her affluent family was ashamed of her half black son; peer pressure. He thought of how this peer pressure was nothing more than that same need for security.
 
He thought of his shaky relationship with his brother Charles. He remembered the year Charles received that small low end tape player for Christmas. Jimmie and his brother’s challenge every Christmas was to open the gifts of socks and long underwear from their mother without getting caught “poking their lips out” pouting.
 
This year they both suspected Charles would be getting the nice stereo system he had been asking for all month. Charles knew Jimmy wasn’t happy about it because he wouldn’t have been happy if it were the other way around.
 
When he opened the gift, the look on Charles’s face combined with the relief Jimmie felt caused Jimmie to bust up laughing. Charles got in trouble that year for pouting and Jimmie would open his gifts of underwear with a renewed sense of everything being right in the world.
 
Years later Jimmy would include his own behavior as he began reflecting on the truth about people, security and relationships.
 
All of his lessons would come at a hefty price, including his appreciation for Christmas socks and long underwear. After his mother’s death Jimmie would intentionally spend Christmas alone every year. Although the first Christmas spent alone was not intentional.
 
He could not get himself to stop crying long enough to leave the house……